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Environment

Why aren't more philosophers involved in discussions and policy on global warming? It is a desperate issue to be addressed and regardless of the philosophical stance in regard to it (i.e. moral skepticism), moral reasons and moral knowledge motivate action in a profound way! I do not think that much progress can be made towards addressing global warming unless the moral seriousness of the matter becomes clear to people and our unjustified indifference is slashed. The culture and spirit of the time should inspire philosophy, just as the excessive violence inspired Descartes in his skeptical exploits. If philosophers, whose reason is supposed to be strong to say the least don't get very involved, who should? I'm sure that this is a bit outlandish, but under what current conditions does a philosopher not have an obligation to get involved? Also, this would be a nice way to reconnect philosophy to the world, especially since a lot of its progress is connected to the insights of philosophy and reason.

I don't know about other philosophers, but their reluctance may be motivated by thoughts such as those Gerald Gaus expresses in his essay "Should Philosophers Apply Ethics?" in Think (2005), pp. 63-67, available at http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=THI&tab=mostdownloaded I am involved in a new organization called ASAP -- Academics Stand Against Poverty -- which (in a soon-to-be-posted essay) has examined and argued against Gaus's arguments and is now very actively doing the kinds of things that Gaus warns against. You can find some relevant material on our website www.academicsstand.org . You will there also find that one of our current projects is "Climate Voices", a project that focuses on global warming and its effects on people whose home environment is made uninhabitable thereby. This project is, by the way, essentially run by students.
Environment
Ethics

Over at TED.com, a website where videos are posted of speakers discussing things from consciousness and virtual reality to comedy and architecture, there are often talks dealing with issues such as hunger, AIDS, and poverty. Shockingly, to me, many people who post comments on these videos strongly oppose measures helping those suffering based on the fact that "there are already far too many people on this planet." Helping those who are currently dying or otherwise suffering, the logic goes, increases the ecological and economical burden on the world by letting more people live longer and healthier lives, which, they seem to think, will ultimately worsen conditions for everyone via lack of resources. So my question is this. Assume it is true that there are too many people on this planet (a debatable fact that depends on what metrics one uses). Is it then ethical to let millions die because helping them would further increase the ecological burden humanity places on the planet?

I let others answer the hypothetical. The key point to stress in response to such comments is that the assumption on which they are based is empirically false (see my answer to question 2459 at www.askphilosophers.org/question/2459 ). We are fortunate that the moral imperative to eradicate the massive incidence of hunger, severe poverty and trivial diseases is in harmony with the moral imperative to bequeath a sustainable world, with a sustainable human population, to future generations. It is very unfortunate that this fact is not widely known. It should be stressed in any discussion of your hypothetical: a morally attractive and highly cost-effective way of slowing human population growth is to fight hunger, severe poverty and trivial diseases and to promote education, especiaally for girls and women.
Environment
Justice

It's becoming increasingly clear that democratic societies are incapable of solving long-range, diffuse ecological problems such as climate change and peak oil, which, although indistinct and nebulous, pose what are potentially existential threats to whole populations. How serious a threat does this pose to the legitimacy of democracy? A related question, or perhaps the same question in different language: the inter-generational transfer of resources which democracies permit is clearly immoral, and profoundly so. At what point does this immorality trump the morality inherent in democratic institutions?

There is a hidden assumption in your questions, namely that we know another, non-democratic form of government under which distant ecological threats and intergenerational injustice would be adequately tackled. In my view, this assumption is false. Any government is run by human beings, and human beings have more togain by making decisions favorable to the living than by makingdecisions favorable to future populations. But if you disagree, and know of a non-democratic form of government that would do the trick, I would like to know which this is and, more eagerly, what evidence you have for your view. For the time being, I would then look elsewhere to a solution to the very serious problems you highlight. I would think hard about reforms of the present systems of democracy to make them more likely to take the more distant future into account. How can this be done? First, we might institute an independent agency that, for any major piece of legislation, prepares a future impact assessment of it...
Environment
Ethics

Scientists, artists, poets, technocrats..., philosophers (etc.) ..., all may respond in their differing ways to a phenomenon like global warming. What might philosophers bring to this serious planetary crisis?

Philosophers can bring reflection on the responsibilities that contributors to global pollution have toward foreigners, future people, and animals and the rest of nature. Foreigners. Global warming is likely to cause severe harms to foreigners -- from draughts in Africa to flooding in Bangladesh -- especially to foreigners who are poor and vulnerable (who, for this reason, are themselves only very minimal contributors to global warming). Most of us shrug off the thought that we owe them anything. We think it's alright to pollute or that our individual contribution is too small to matter. Is this an adequate response if millions die prematurely as a result of the pollution we together produce? Future people. Global warming is likely to have devastating effects far in the future. In cost-benefit analyses, it is common to discount the interests of future people, typically by 3 percent per annum. This is thought plausible in analogy to how individuals discount future pains and pleasures -- we are...
Environment
Ethics

What can explain the blindspot of mainstream politics that prevents global warming from being the biggest current agenda? This question is not possible to answer unless you accept the blatant assumption within it viz. that global warming should be the biggest current agenda that our intellectual, moral and political efforts should focus on. I believe this because I have read from various sources that it is scientific consensus that current levels of energy consumption will lead to global environmental catastrophe within a short time period. If you accept this, then this issue really smokes out all of the other important social causes that make up the majority of political discourse. I don’t believe, for example, that democracy matters in the true sense of peoples’ interests being weighted equally and determining equally political outcomes, when – whatever can be said of the virtues of such an ideal – this isn’t the way decisions are made in realpolitik – the amount of political discourse about spreading...

I think there are three plausible candidates for the title of most urgent issue on humanity's political agenda. Global warming is is one. A substantial change in the global climate, induced by human activities, might well have catastrophic consequences. The second, somewhat related problem is that of world poverty. Today, the bottom half of humankind are still living in severe poverty, and quite avoidably so: the bottom half of the human income hierarchy have less than 2 percent of global income and even much less of global wealth. Among these people, some 850 million are reported to be chronically undernourished, 1037 million to be without access to safe water, 2600 million without access to improved sanitation, about 2000 million without access to essential drugs, some 1000 million without adequate shelter, and 2000 million without electricity. Some 18 million of them (including 10.6 million children under five) die prematurely each year from poverty-related causes, which amounts to nearly one...
Environment
Ethics

Regardless of all the technological and agricultural improvements made since the end of the 18th century when Malthus wrote his essay on population, there are more people living in extreme poverty today than there were people (in total) living when his essay was published. This is consistent with what Malthus claimed: there is no way for human population centers to live within their means -- any increase in resources will inevitably lead to a rise in population until the available resources are again insufficient to maintain the population. The seemingly noble cause of ending world hunger, if doable even for a relatively short time, would ultimately lead to more poverty and hunger (barring some unknown hole in Malthus' theory). Is it ethical to help someone in need today if you are quite certain this will only cause more people to suffer later?

Yes, the fact you cite is consistent with what Malthus claimed. But many other facts are not. There is a strong negative correlation between countries' affluence and their fertility: The more affluent countries tend to have lower fertility, with many affluent countries having fertility rates well below what is needed to maintain their population (Italy's and Spain's are now at 1.28 children per woman, Japan's and Germany's at 1.39, versus 4.96 for Kenya -- find data for other countries e.g. in the CIA World Factbook on the web). The negative correlation holds diachronically within countries as well: As countries become more affluent, their fertility rate drops. This phenomenon can be observed the world over, across continents and cultures. A good example is the Indian state of Kerala. It used to be among the poorer ones in terms of per capita income, but has had a very strong and effective commitment to the fulfillment of basic social and economic needs, including education for women. In...
Environment
Ethics

How immoral (amoral?) is it that, despite rising awareness over the past few decades of "Spaceship Earth's" limited resources and carrying capacity, we continue to pursue a growth-dependent economy and grossly materialistic lifestyles that are clearly unsustainable and must have catastrophic consequences, if not for ourselves, probably for our own children and certainly for coming generations. Since we are all participating in the plundering and spoiling of our planet, with whom does responsibility lie? And does the fact, that we are in "collective denial" of the consequences in any way reduce or excuse our culpability? Roger Hicks

It is not quite right to say that we are all participating in the spoiling of our planet. While the 16 percent of world population residing in the high-income countries live on around $30,000 annually on average, the bottom half of humankind live on less (often very much less) than $1,300 annually at purchasing power parity (corresponding to roughly $300 at market exchange rates). The bottom half are consuming and burdening the environment, but not excessively so. Nearly all the harms the question highlights are produced by their wealthier compatriots in the poorer countries and (especially) by the populations of the high-income countries. This point heightens our responsibility. We are plundering our planet and also appropriating the spoils of this plunder so lopsidedly that half of the human population still lives in dire poverty, which exposes 850 million people to hunger and malnutrition (UNDP) and causes millions of deaths (including annually 10.6 million children under age 5) from poverty...